Camp Mystic leader, who died trying to save small children, waited over an hour after alert before starting evacuation
The adult leader of Camp Mystic, the Texas summer camp where 27 children and counselors died in the Hill Country floods, waited more than an hour after receiving a severe flood warning before initiating an evacuation, it was disclosed on Monday.
Richard “Dick” Eastland, who had run the popular all-girls, Christian-values sleepaway camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River with his family since the 1980s, was among the fatalities after a wall of water rushed through the camp early on 4 July.
A spokesperson for the Eastland family told the Washington Post that a National Weather Service (NWS) alert was sent to his phone at 1.14am warning of “life threatening flash flooding”, and only at 2.30am, with heavy rain still falling and the river level rising fast, he made the decision to begin evacuations.
Absolutely. As I pointed out in another post in this thread, FEMA declared that part of the camp was on a flood plain in 2011. The camp appealed and got them to change the designation which would have required flood insurance and forced them to build to stricter standards as they built more structures on the flood plain.
That’s so fucked up. I’m not surprised unfortunately. Flood plain and building very close to oceans is popular in Canada as well and will lead to many issues pretty soon.
they appealed?? to whom?? god??
To FEMA, who said, “Gosh, I guess maybe we don’t need to declare all that area as a flood plain.”